Essay Madison鈥檚 balancing act聽 March 22, 2022 The further the American Revolution recedes into history, the easier it is to miss just how close the United States of America came to being a divided collection of competing colonies under the punishing heel of an angry Britain. Read More
Essay The evolution of bird migration March 21, 2022 To an earthbound species like humans, bird migration is nothing short of extreme. A four-ounce Arctic tern can fly to Antarctica and back each year during a lifetime that spans 30 years. Read More
Interview Carolyn Chen on Work Pray Code March 16, 2022 Silicon Valley is known for its lavish perks, intense work culture, and spiritual gurus. Work Pray Code explores how tech companies are bringing religion into the workplace in ways that are replacing traditional places of worship, blurring the line between work and religion and transforming the very nature of spiritual experience in modern life. Read More
Essay Is the human brain a biological computer? March 14, 2022 Electrically, the brain remains largely a black box. We send electrical signals in and we get electrical signals out, but what it all exactly means is open to a lot of interpretation and some intense controversy. Read More
Essay A spacetime interval聽 March 14, 2022 Albert Einstein is dead. Bohemia, too, no longer exists. They have ascended to the realm of myths and legends, become words to conjure with鈥攜et they are not, in general, invoked together. Read More
Essay Pi Day March 11, 2022 As every mathematician knows, 3.14 is only a rough approximation to 蟺, one that fails to reveal its most fascinating properties, of being irrational and in fact transcendental. Read More
Reading List A playlist for Waterloo Sunrise March 07, 2022 There are cultural moments that implant themselves in our shared consciousness, impacting how we discuss or recall those times. If someone were to mention the early aughts, for example, chances are we could all point to an event, a celebrity, a song that represents the entire era, not just for one person, but for us all. Read More
Essay Facebook鈥檚 dark design: It鈥檚 not just the algorithms February 25, 2022 In the midst of our current debate about Facebook, have we ignored a core issue? Public scrutiny has focused almost entirely on the company and its practices. Read More
Essay Power, racism, and the role of the university February 23, 2022 In October 2020, I sat down with historian Khalil Gibran Muhammad for an event about my book, The Campus Color Line. It was a lively conversation, ranging from discussions about reparations in higher education to questioning who should lead U.S. colleges and universities. Read More
Essay The physicality of life February 15, 2022 DNA is stuff: physical, tangible, material. We all know this; we can even picture in our minds its famous double helical form. Read More
Interview Nomi M. Stolzenberg and David N. Myers on American Shtetl February 10, 2022 Settled in the mid-1970s by a small contingent of Hasidic families, Kiryas Joel is an American town with few parallels in Jewish history鈥攂ut many precedents among religious communities in the United States. Read More
Essay A look inside The War That Doesn鈥檛 Say Its Name February 03, 2022 In early 2008, I set up my research base at the VIP hotel in downtown Goma, a trade hub in the eastern Congo nestled between the Nyiragongo Volcano and the shores of Lake Kivu. Read More
Interview Zeynep Pamuk on Politics and Expertise January 31, 2022 Our ability to act on some of the most pressing issues of our time, from pandemics and climate change to artificial intelligence and nuclear weapons, depends on knowledge provided by scientists and other experts. Read More
Essay Arnold Weinstein on The Lives of Literature January 29, 2022 The Lives of Literature: Reading, Teaching, Knowing as the subtitle suggests, is after large game: why we go to literature, what its value might be in a world increasingly devoted to 鈥渋nformation,鈥� and what a career in teaching has taught me, as well as my students. Read More
Essay Skill, power, and control in the world of Qatar鈥檚 migrant workers January 27, 2022 On the shoreline of Doha, Qatar, a tacky countdown clock, an enormous fuchsia hourglass cast in acrylic and sponsored by the luxury watchmaker Hublot, flashes the days, minutes, and seconds until the first ball of the 2022 FIFA World Cup is kicked at 6pm on November 21, 2022. Read More
